BLANK

[Mr_Misanthropy]

Liar.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Jamespowers predicted this. As of now, this new thread -- a freakin' blank thread! -- has been looked at 166 times. Incredible.





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[Lincsong]

For the first time, I'm at a lost for words.

......

 

[Marc Chevalier]

You, sir, are on topic.





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[Zach R.]

While you have so much time, snap me some pics of those '40s ties I was asking about.

 

[Sefton]

{ ************************ }

 

[Mojave Jack]

I once knew a woman who wore sweaters in the summer.

 

[Lincsong]

Whistling passed the graveyard

:whistling :whistling :whistling

 

[Miss Neecerie]

A blank is a type of cartridge for a gun that contains gunpowder but no bullet or shot. Blanks are commonly used for safety reasons in military training maneuvers, in movies that require gun fights, and in starter's pistols to signal the beginning of races.
However, it should be noted that given the explosiveness of a blank cartridge they are by no means safe. While blanks do not contain bullets, they often contain a paper or plastic plug that seals the powder in the case, called a wad (a term derived from shotgun shells). This wad can cause bruising at medium ranges and severe penetrating wounds at close range. There is also a great deal of hot, expanding gas that comes out of the muzzle of the gun when a blank round is fired. Exposure to this gas can cause grievous injuries. In addition if there is any debris in the barrel (for example stones in the far end) it will be expelled at a similar velocity to a bullet, with similar capability for harm. Actors in particular are at serious risk of injury from blank cartridges used on movie sets. Actors Brandon Lee and Jon-Erik Hexum were both killed in accidents involving blank cartridges. Lee was killed by an old cartridge fragment lodged in the gun, while Hexum died when a wad penetrated his skull. The explosion alone can cause damage to the eardrum, so hearing protection is recommended.
Special blank cartridges are also used for applications where the explosive power of a cartridge is needed, but a projectile is not. Blank cartridges were commonly used for launching rifle grenades, though modern grenades are capable of trapping the bullet of a live round.
Blank rimfire cartriges are also used in some nail guns, where the power is tapped to force a heavy piston into the nail, with enough force to bury its full length in steel or concrete.
Some forms of fast draw competitions use special blanks that are loaded with a layer of slow burning rifle powder on top of a thin layer of faster burning pistol powder. The pistol powder ignites the slower burning rifle powder, and fires it out the barrel much like a shotgun shell. The burning powder only travels a few yards before it completely combusts, but that is far enough to burst the balloon used as a target for those competitions. Wax bullets are also commonly used for competitions and training where a non-lethal projectile is required.
A blank cartridge may also be issued to several randomly selected shooters in an execution by firing squad. This is to allow each shooter the belief that they fired the blank.

 

[jake_fink]

 

[DanielJones]

Uh, what were we not talking about?

 

[jamespowers]

Jamespowers predicted this. As of now, this new thread -- a freakin' blank thread! -- has been looked at 166 times. Incredible.





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Yes but i think you took my idea to the extreme. I meant just to have a thread that was general not literally blank. :eusa_doh:
I think the novelty factor got to the viewers. [huh]
I hesitate to share this other idea though. I think an Open Discussion Friday thread might be even more popular with just a free roaming discussion. it could get all the week's worth of stuff hashed out in one thread. Kinda tie up loose ends. We'll see.

regards,

J

 

[mysterygal]

Marc, I don't know wether to call you odd or adorable....but I get a kick out of your sense of humor! fftopic: fftopic: fftopic: fftopic: fftopic:

 

[jamespowers]

speaking of funnies

It's the fish sauce
A lady commuting on BART, engrossed in a newspaper article about death statistics, turned to the man next to her and exclaimed, "Did you know that every time I breathe somebody dies?"

"Really?" he said. "Have you tried mouthwash?"



Animal Kingdom
The lion boasted, "When I roar on the great plains of Africa, the entire savannah flees in fear!"

The bear bragged, "When I roar in the North American forest, the whole forest quakes in fear!"

The chicken shrugged, "Big deal. When I cough, the whole planet has an aneurism."




Driving Quiz
You're driving a car at a steady speed. There is a deep valley to your left side and on your right side there is a fire engine pacing you.

There's a galloping pig about the same size as your car in front of you. Try as you might, you can't overtake it. Immediately behind you, following you at the same speed, is a helicopter flying at ground level.

Since everyone is traveling at the same speed that you are, you're trapped in their midst.

How do you get out of this potentially dangerous situation?

Please scroll down for the answer:

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Get off the children's carousel and next time, don't drink so darned much.

 

[mysterygal]

HOW TO TELL IF YOU'RE A SECRET REDNECK JEDI

If you hear . . . "Luke, I am your father... and your uncle..."

If you ever said the phrase, "May the force be with y'all."

Your Jedi robe is camouflage.

You have ever used your light saber to open a bottle of Bud Light.

At least one wing of your X-Wings is primer colored.

You can easily describe the taste of an Ewok.

You have ever had a land-speeder up on blocks in your yard.

The worst part of spending time on Dagobah is the dadgum skeeters.

Wookiees are offended by your B.O.

You have ever used the force to get yourself another beer so you didn't have to wait for a commercial.

You have ever used the force in conjunction with fishing or bowling.

You have ever had your R-2 unit use its self-defense electro-shock thingy to get the barbecue grill to light up.

You have a confederate flag painted on the hood of your land-speeder.

You ever fantasized about Princess Leia wearing Daisy Duke shorts.

You have the doors of your X-wing welded shut and you have to get in through the window.

Although you had to kill him, you kinda thought that Jabba the Hutt had a pretty good handle on how to treat his women.

You have a cousin who bears a strong resemblance to Chewbacca.

You suggested that they outfit the Millennium Falcon with redwood deck.

You were the only person drinking Jack Daniels during the cantina scene.

Your father has ever said to you, "Shoot, son come on over to the dark side...it'll be a hoot."

 

[Samsa]

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=----------

You just blew my mind.

 

[jamespowers]

Let me get Way off Topic

This is a good one. Next time I lose something I am going to call this dude:

The New York Times

June 21, 2006





Tale of a Lost Cellphone, and Untold Static

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Dirty Harry had his .44. Sherlock Holmes had his brain.
Evan Guttman had his computer, the Web and a few thousand people he had never met. That was enough.

Three weeks ago, Mr. Guttman went on a quest to retrieve a friend's lost cellphone, a quest that has now ended with the arrest of a 16-year-old on charges of possessing the missing gadget, a Sidekick model with a built-in camera that sells for as much as $350. But before the teenager was arrested, she was humiliated by Mr. Guttman in front of untold thousands of people on the Web, an updated version of the elaborate public shamings common in centuries past.

The tale began when Mr. Guttman's best friend Ivanna left her cellphone in a taxicab, like thousands of others before her. After Ivanna got a new Sidekick, she logged on to her account — and was confronted by pictures of an unfamiliar young woman and her family, along with the young woman's America Online screen name.

The 16-year-old, Sasha Gomez, of Corona, Queens, had been using the Sidekick to take pictures and send instant messages. She apparently did not know that the company that provided the phone's service, T-Mobile, automatically backs up such information on its remote servers. So when Ivanna got back on, there was Sasha.

Using instant messages, Mr. Guttman tracked down Sasha and asked her to return it. "Basically, she told me to get lost," Mr. Guttman recalled. "That was it."

So he set up a no-frills Web page with a brief account of what happened, and posted the pictures of the girl and her family. Within hours of putting up the Web page, Mr. Guttman was fielding hundreds of e-mail messages from those nursing their own bitter memories of a lost cellphone, a BlackBerry or a digital camera that went unreturned.

There were links to the page on Digg and Gizmodo, two popular tech-oriented blogs, which helped drive more and more traffic. Eventually, hundreds of other Web sites posted links to his page. The hundreds of e-mail messages became thousands, from as far away as Africa and Asia. Mr. Guttman tried to answer them all, and barely slept. "A lot of people have been saying, 'I lost my phone, I wish I did this,' " he said.

Some readers also began visiting Sasha's MySpace page and bombarding her and her friends with e-mail messages. Others found her street address in Corona and drove by her family's apartment building, taking videos or shouting out "thief" in front of her neighbors.

Meanwhile, lawyers and police officers sent Mr. Guttman e-mail messages instructing him on the finer points of property law and advice on how to navigate the police bureaucracy. Some readers took to Internet forums, where they exchanged their own stories of lost phones and recalled the time last year when Paris Hilton's Sidekick was hacked, allowing millions of people to view her pictures and personal address book.

The site continued to draw e-mail messages and rack up visitors. When Mr. Guttman's Web server crashed with all of the traffic, several people offered free server space. A reader in Orlando, Fla., recorded a song about the missing Sidekick and posted it on a MySpace page. (Sample lyrics: "Materialistic-kleptomaniac/please just give her Sidekick back.") Another, Mr. Guttman said, invited him to a party at the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles. Still others located Mr. Guttman's personal site, which is not directly linked to the Sidekick page, and found photographs that he has taken of swimsuit models, some of them seminude. They accused him of an intricate scheme to sell pornography, which he laughed off.

Mr. Guttman also kept exchanging e-mail messages with Sasha and, eventually, her family. Then he heard from her older brother, Luis Pena, who said he was a military policeman and warned Mr. Guttman to let his sister alone.

Mr. Guttman posted the exchange.

Within days, he was contacted by dozens of active and retired soldiers. One said he had gone through basic training with Mr. Pena; several others told Mr. Guttman that making such a threat was a violation of military policy and promised to report Mr. Pena to his superior officers.

Mr. Guttman posted it all.

"I don't want people to be punished," he said last week. "I just want them to give the Sidekick back."

The girl's family was not pleased by the attention, especially the random visitors to their street. Though Sasha and Mr. Pena did not respond to instant messages and e-mail messages, their mother, Ivelisse Gomez, confirmed that her son was serving in the Army and had been in trouble with his superior officers after some of the visitors to Mr. Guttman's Web page called in to complain. She also said that Mr. Guttman's Web site amounted to harassment and said the family might sue him.

"They told him to come pick it up," said Ms. Gomez, speaking in the apartment of her building's superintendent last Thursday. She said she had bought the phone for $50 on a subway platform in Queens and had given it to her daughter. "We said he could have it if he gave the money we paid for it," she added.

Mr. Guttman, however, said that the offer to retrieve the phone was accompanied by a threat of physical injury. So after posting a warning that Sasha had one last chance to return the phone, he accompanied its actual owner, his friend Ivanna, to a Manhattan police station. Ivanna asked that her last name be kept private, as she was about to be married, and, she said, "I don't want to be famous for having lost my Sidekick."

"I was worried, because I had all this information on the phone — all these numbers and e-mails, personal and work," she said. "So I called Evan, because he's really good with computers."

People are not nice," she added, referring to Sasha. "Why?"

Last Thursday, the story of the lost Sidekick began meandering toward a conclusion. The police arrested Sasha and charged her with possession of stolen property in the fifth degree, a misdemeanor. (The police have possession of the Sidekick and plan to return it to Ivanna.) Sasha was released, but was not available to comment. Her mother offered a parting remark.

"I never in my life thought a phone was going to cause me so many problems," Ms. Gomez said.

Original article (registration required):



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/nyregion/21sidekick.html



Evan Guttman's Sidekick website:



http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick/

 

[Johnnysan]

 

[jamespowers]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Leave the defenseless hat alone.

 

[mysterygal]

James, so ruining a hat like that would be immediate 'boot' out of here right?